ATL06LA039 · Cessna T210M
Cessna T210M · Accident: loss of control in flight on approach
From Smyrna Airport (MQY) to City of Murfreesboro Airport (MBT)
Event
- NTSB case
- ATL06LA039
- Event typeAccident: someone killed or seriously injured, or the aircraft substantially damaged (NTSB definition). Incident: an occurrence that affected or could have affected safety, short of that. Glossary
- Accident
- InvestigationHow far the investigation had got when the record was published: preliminary, ongoing, final or completed. Unknown where the source does not say. Glossary
- Completed
- API-reported fatalities
- 0 · all aircraft and ground
- Ground fatalities
- Unknown
- OperationWhat kind of flying it was, grouped by the rules it flew under: airline (US Part 121), air taxi and commuter (Part 135), general aviation (Part 91 and similar), military or government. Glossary
- General aviation
- WeatherVisual meteorological conditions (VMC): good enough to fly by looking outside. Instrument conditions (IMC): cloud or low visibility, flying by instruments. Glossary
- Visual Meteorological Cond
Cessna T210M
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 210
- Category
- Airplane
- RegistrationThe aircraft's tail number, such as N12345 or G-ABCD. Registrations are reissued, so the same one years apart can be a different aircraft. Glossary
- N761ZV
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Smyrna Airport (MQY), Smyrna, TNTo City of Murfreesboro Airport (MBT), Murfreesboro, TN
- Aircraft age
- Not recorded
- Flight rulesThe regulations the flight operated under: in the US, Part 91 (general aviation), Part 121 (airlines), Part 135 (air taxi and commuter) and others; for flights abroad, the NTSB's coarser commercial or non-commercial code. Glossary
- Part 91: General Aviation
- Phase of flightThe stage of the flight when things started to go wrong: standing, taxi, takeoff, initial climb, en route, maneuvering, approach or landing. Glossary
- Approach
- First occurrenceThe single coded event the NTSB judges best describes what happened (records from 2008 on). Older records name the first occurrence in the sequence instead. Glossary
- Loss of control in flight
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- Destroyed
Cause areas
No findings designated as a cause are recorded in the NTSB data yet.
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
According to the controller, at 1445 the pilot radioed the tower and reported, "He was having problems with the trim, and was going to return to the airport". The pilot also reported "that he had to apply a lot of back pressure on the yoke, and the electric trims were not working". The controller requested a position report, and the pilot advised him that he was south of MBT. The pilot asked what runways were available at MBT, and the controller informed him "18-36". The pilot replied, "Yeah I'm going for that". No further radio transmissions were received from the pilot. Witnesses on the ground reported seeing the airplane flying "erratic", and "porpoising". The airplane collided with the ground approximately 300 yards short of runway 18 at MBT. A post-crash fire consumed the cockpit area aft of the firewall, cabin, and inboard portion of the left wing. The tailcone and all the aerodynamic surfaces of the empennage were also consumed by post-crash fire. Examination of the elevator trim actuator and electrical trim revealed they were heavily damaged by post-impact fire. Examination of the electric trim control assembly showed it had sustained post-crash fire damage and that it was not possible to determine if the assembly was operational at the time of the accident.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to maintain airplane control during a precautionary landing following a reported failure (undetermined) of the elevator trim control system.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ATL06LA039
- Event ID
- 20060214X00200
- Case number
- ATL06LA039
- Dataset
- historical-pre2008
- Source SHA-256
- 89e2df6d848e7ab3b42e7d7c7a03ff403303057a26ca04c95b3ea67201c3ce74
Source notes (4)
- Unreviewed is an editorial label, not an investigation status. API-sourced is not report-checked or human-reviewed. Explicit event totals are used without summing aircraft injury tables; onboard allocation is withheld. Unknown values remain unknown. The operation category is mapped from the NTSB-reported FAR part and has not been reviewed.
- Filled from the NTSB case API where the bulk record had no value: investigation status, coordinates. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date, which is the same as the UTC date the NTSB stores.
- API snapshot SHA-256: cd159786fdf1671e9ba1640c363dad10f9dde53b6704b0d06986820cc85c2e5f; retrieved 2026-09-21T09:00:23.288Z.